September 03, (THEWILL) – A 19-year-old candidate in the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination ( UTME), Chinedu Ifesinachi John, has been arrested by the police for allegedly tampering with the UTME result.
The spokesman of the Board, Fabian Benjamin, in a statement on Friday, said the arrest followed the suspect’s claim of scoring 380 in the examination conducted in June this year and was surprised to receive 265 from the board after the results were released
Following the alleged “alteration” of the UTME score, his father, John Ifenkpam approached an Enugu–based lawyer, Ikeazor Akaiwe, who wrote to JAMB for another opportunity for the boy to retake the examination and demanded N1 billion as damages.
The lawyer said in an official letter addressed to the board that the N1 billion was to cover for the physical and emotional trauma the boy had been through from being offered “two separate scores from 2019–2021.”
Master John claimed that his UTME scores from 2019 till 2021 had been “altered” by the board, thereby denying him the opportunity to study his desired course, medicine.
Following an invitation from the management of JAMB led by the Registrar of JAMB, Prof Is-haq Oloyede, the candidate, his father and his lawyer, on Friday traveled down from Enugu to the Abuja headquarters of JAMB.
Initially, the boy was given a few minutes to “come clean” in a closed session with his father and the lawyer about the results he was parading but insisted that his original score from the examination was 380.
After going back and forth, the board tendered evidence to counter the claim by John and his legal representatives.
At the Friday meeting, documentary evidence tendered by the board showed that John actually scored 265 not the 380 he had claimed.
Oloyede accused the candidate of result tampering, adding that he will be handed over to the police for investigation and subsequently prosecuted.
The registrar said John was among 11 eleven other candidates who allegedly forged their results that the board would prosecute.
He said the original result issued to John would be withdrawn pending the end of the investigation.
The registrar said: “We will give you five minutes for your child to tell you the truth. If he doesn’t tell you the truth and come back we will show you what your son has done and hand him over to the police.
“Who is helping you to do it? How much did he pay; if you don’t tell your father the truth we will hand you over to the police and you will be prosecuted.
“We have 11 of them who tampered with their results. Two of them are already being prosecuted.
“The remaining ones we are going to withdraw their results and prosecute them. The main purpose is to sanitise the system, including our own staff.
“There was never any communication of 380 with this boy. Because this boy has accused JAMB, we are going to withhold his result until the investigation is concluded. We are going to request that our interactions with him be subjected to the public.
“As far as I am concerned I am reporting you to the IG now except you tell me who helped you to commit this crime.”
The registrar said the boy needed redemption with the crimes he had allegedly “committed.”
He also said a team of security agents would visit Enugu state to arrest members of a tutorial group the boy confessed to belong to.
According to Oloyede, tutorial owners are at the heart of examination malpractice in the country, saying the board would not relent in fighting them.
His lawyer, Ikeazor, appealed to the board to give room for further investigation. He said: “I will not stand against the investigation. Let there be an investigation but what I will not agree to is to prejudge him.”
John had said: “The result I have been receiving is not the result I am entitled to. I wrote the first JAMB in 2019.
“The first time they sent 328 later I saw a 278 score when I checked it. I printed it. I couldn’t meet up for admission that year. I wanted to study medicine and surgery at the University of Ibadan.
“In 2020 the same thing happened. I scored 343 by the time I went to the portal to print I saw 306. I used the 306 and it gave me admission in UI. But because I didn’t have further mathematics I had to forfeit it.
“I decided to leave medicine and surgery for them in 2021 so I picked petroleum engineering. In 2021, JAMB issued me two results. I saw 380 the first time I checked then the second I saw 265.”
AYO ESAN, has been actively reporting and analyzing political events for different newspapers for over 18 years. He has also successfully covered national and state elections in Nigeria since the inception of this democracy in 1999.
